Hi Fong, Happy New Year to you and the lovely AnnaS. 'Back' may be a little premature, having popped in for a reminder about Tom Swifties, but.

Thanks Rhuby and Luke - yes, I get that we're talking about a garment used in religious rituals that is more or less an apron or, schematically, a decorative wife-beater. But the only etymology I found suggested that the noun came from 'aphad', meaning 'to put on'. So the original meaning was something like…

And he put upon him the coat, and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the robe, and put the ‘thing you put on’ upon him, and he girded him with the curious girdle of the ‘thing you put on’, and bound [it] unto him therewith.

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